1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the invention relate to the field of microprocessors, and more specifically, to communication bus.
2. Description of Related Art
Chipsets have become more and more important in a typical microprocessor system. A chipset may provide many functionalities to support tasks such as device interface, memory control, input/output (I/O) control, power management, security management, network interface, etc. As more and more chipsets are integrated into a microprocessor system, interconnecting devices and chipsets becomes a challenge.
Existing techniques to provide interconnect buses have a number of drawbacks. High speed interfaces such as the Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) Express as provided in the PCI Base Specification 1.1 published by PCI Special Interest Group (SIG) in 2004, requires high power consumption, even when not actively transmitting or receiving. These bus interfaces typically have high pin count, requiring large space for connectors. They typically use a common clock source, leading to difficulty to obtain clock signals during off-power states. In addition, they may have complex communication protocols, resulting in hardware complexity.